I've never been very good at taking vacations. For my whole adult life, a minimum of one of the following statements has been true: I'm a student, with the flexible schedule that goes with that; I work at a job where I can make my own hours; I live and/or work in a place that I would have considered a vacation destination when I was younger. So, step zero in convincing myself to take a vacation has always been to convince myself that I am not somehow already on vacation. Once that's accomplished, step one has always been to convince myself that I deserve one.

I moved back to Bloomington a week ago after spending the summer in California at Mozilla Research. All summer, my work obligations and my research obligations have been fighting with each other for my attention. In May and June, I needed to implement suffix inference for integer literals and start figuring out what the deal was with traits and typeclasses in Rust, but I also needed to work on my POPL submission. In July, I needed to work on implementing traits, but I also needed to work on the tech report that accompanied my POPL submission, and I had to fit both of those things in around OPLSS. In August, I needed to bring my project to some semblance of a close and give a talk about it at Mozilla, but I also needed to prepare and give a research talk at Berkeley. I did all those things, and as it turns out, working one's ass off for three months is an effective way to convince oneself that one is, in fact, not currently on vacation, and furthermore, that one deserves a vacation when it's all over. So I declared myself on vacation last week. It was awesome. As a result, this edition of My, What A Busy Week! Week is pretty much the least busy one ever. Enjoy!

Monday: Courtesy of Christine lyceum_arabica and her car, we arrive at home in Bloomington shortly after midnight, with a large pile of luggage and two very unhappy cats who have just endured a twelve-hour day of being carried, driven, and flown across the country. Christine and Mark tristmasjedi and their cats are all staying with us for the next couple of weeks, bringing the human/feline population of the household up to four and four from its baseline two and two. If, at any point in the next two weeks, humanity finds itself at war with an alien force prone to cat allergies, I fully expect the feds to show up and haul away our couch for use as a chemical weapon. I write up the current state of default methods in Rust and promise to work on it more later in the week, but don't feel in any particular hurry. Vacation!

Tuesday: I pay Christine's favor forward and take Jamie to the airport. I book myself a ticket for ICFP and start dreaming about what Chris chrisamaphone and I will do with the extra couple of days we've given ourselves -- I've never been to northern Europe before. I cheer Alex oniugnip on as he starts teaching his class. It's great to have my own stuff back: my own bike, and especially my own set of knives (let's face it -- the kitchens at Oakwood are really more like movie sets of kitchens).

Wednesday: Languid attempts at unpacking and household chores; dinner at the Owlery and a visit to the game store with Zach zacharyzsparks; helping Alex fill a Goodwill-bound box.

Thursday: I make falafel; I successfully finish unpacking one suitcase; I lurk on Alex's class's IRC channel, where they're making IRC bots as part of the first homework assignment. What else? Man, I don't even know. Lying around the house reading blogs, mostly. Vacation!

Friday: My research group has our first meeting of the year, and I don't have to organize it! (I've done my time; this year, it's someone else's turn.) The meeting itself only lasts a few minutes, since all we do is allocate speaking slots for the rest of the semester, but, as always, we're adorably incapable of meeting for only a few minutes; there's just too much to talk about. Eventually, Alex arrives, and five of us forcibly extricate ourselves and head off to dinner at Anatolia with him. While we're at dinner, my advisor walks by holding his baby son and says, "Anyone want a baby?"1 Afterward, Alex and I walk two miles to a gathering at Aaron's place, which takes forever, first because we stop for cookies (baked to order when you arrive!), and then because we get inexplicably lost on the way. When we finally arrive at the party, there are four men and three women there, which is so much more balanced of a gender ratio than gatherings of my friends usually have that, no j/k, I actually think we're at the wrong party for a moment. Wow. Maybe I should do something about that.

Saturday: I poke at default methods for a while, pare down a crashy test, try to figure out why it's crashing, and eventually figure out that the culprit is a little piece of code that shouldn't exist.2 Y'know, I'm pretty sure Sully tried to warn me about this on my last day at Mozilla, and I wasn't really listening, because it was my last day; I make a note to ask him about it later. I visit my office for the first time since spring, and it looks like someone's been using the formerly empty desk next to mine. Curious who they might be, I pick up one of their books. To my delight, it's the issue of Higher-Order and Symbolic Computation that contains an article by Rob simrob. Okay, I don't know who this mysterious new desk-neighbor is, but I officially approve of th -- oh, wait, I do know who it is; it's Sajith sajith! Yay! And the poster I put on the door is even still there.